On the other side of the continent and far to the south, the pirate ship Port Mandu rolled easily above the gentle waves, her stern tugging to starboard with each passing swell. She stayed straight enough, though, for she was tied fast to a mooring ball both forward and aft in the hidden cove the buccaneers used to gain access to the mainland beyond the watching eyes of the Tonoloya Armada.
Half the thirty-man crew was ashore then, trading casks of rum and some booty—fine clothes and some shiny but cheap pieces of jewelry they had graciously accepted as payment from the grateful crew and passengers of a Xoconai merchant ship after they had caught her too far from a patrolling warship and shown them mercy. The capture had proven to be a pleasant boarding, with more wine spilled than blood, and the merchant captain had seemed very pleased to convince one particularly nasty old Xoconai couple he was toting about the south seas to pay the ransom.
Indeed, the merchant captain’s only disappointment came about when Port Mandu’s gentlemanly captain, known in Xoconai circles as the Polite Pirate, refused to take the elderly curmudgeons along with the booty. The buccaneers had no use for goldfish, as the Xoconai were called, after all.
Port Mandu’s captain, Wilkie Dogears, so named for the large flappers that stuck out from his shaggy hair—ears made even more prominent by generous earrings—paced his deck this quiet morning, the sun barely above the horizon behind him. He tried to be patient but found himself glancing to the jungle shore with every other step, watching for the return of his crew. Port Mandu had many contacts in the nearby villages, and this stop to unload the contraband would usually be without much tension, except that this time, there were three Tonoloya Armada warships anchored only a few miles up the coast. A lone patrolling warship was a common sight, two a bit unnerving, but three? Three signaled that something important was happening behind the thick canopy of wide green leaves and howling monkeys.
Durubazzi was a dangerous land, thick with giant crocodiles that could swallow a man whole, giant snakes that swallowed the crocodiles whole, and powerful black-spotted orange cats that dropped silently from the canopy on high to kill their oftentimes human prey before the victim even knew the killer was there.
To say nothing of the Durubazzi warriors, of course, fierce and proud, who knew the jungle and had thrived there, where few others dared to walk, for generations untold.
The Durubazzi had gold, though, and the bright-faced conquerors who had swept through the kingdom of Honce a few hundred miles to the north coveted that metal more than anything. Even the dense and dangerous jungle couldn’t protect the native folk from the Xoconai legions.
Catching sight of some commotion in the flora, Captain Wilkie glanced to the shoreline, to see his men hustling out of the jungle to the two dinghies they had hidden in the reeds. They scrambled in and rowed out fast, and Wilkie understood when the canopy parted yet again to reveal a team of goldfish soldiers rushing down to the water, a long and light canoe held above them.
Wilkie’s crew had enough of a lead to get to Port Mandu first, he realized quickly, but he’d never get the sails up and the ketch away before the goldfish came up alongside.
“Just quietly drop it,” he ordered the brown-skinned woman sitting near the small chest of gold on the first dinghy that arrived back at Port Mandu. “Between the boat and the ship with not a splash.”
The woman, Chimeg, who had a round, flat face, grimaced and spat in the water, even paused and looked back at the approaching soldiers. With a snarl, she did as she had been told.
Captain Wilkie understood her frustration—they had worked hard for that gold, after all. He nodded his appreciation, then started suddenly when he noticed a hollow reed pop up at the dinghy’s side and the shadow of a man swimming down from underneath the small boat, very obviously in pursuit of the chest.
“We should just kill them and go get our reward,” First Mate Jocasta said when she’d pulled herself over the rail of Port Mandu to take her place beside the captain.
Captain Wilkie chuckled but otherwise didn’t bother to reply. Hunting ships on the open sea was one thing. Tangling with trained goldfish soldiers and magic-using augurs in close quarters on the shore of Durubazzi with three warships close enough to seal them off from any escape was quite another.
The crew had the dinghies tied against the ketch’s side, but to their surprise, Wilkie waved them off when they moved to bring the small boats up to the deck for proper storage.
The goldfish in their canoe came bumping up through the two dinghies soon enough.
“I will have your permission to come aboard, captain,” said the woman who seemed to be the ranking officer, given the gold ribbons and medals on her wooden breastplate.
“I would have it no other way, good captain.”
“I am no captain. I am mundunugu.”
“A lizard rider,” said First Mate Jocasta, a tall and lanky brown-skinned woman with long, straight black hair—so black that it sparkled in reflection of the climbing sun bouncing off the ripples in the cove. She walked up to Wilkie’s side.
It was an interesting turn, indeed. Those ships up north had brought land fighters to Durubazzi? That put Wilkie at ease a bit, as he figured they’d be less likely to give him chase when he sailed out if they had sent a bunch of soldiers deep into the jungle.
The mundunugu warrior and the others came out of their canoe with practiced order, one going into each of the dinghies to closely inspect it, the other eight, led by the woman, coming aboard, with three moving aft and three forward.
The woman and one other came up before Wilkie.
“Why are you here? You are a man of Honce and far from home.”
“Freeport, not Honce,” Wilkie countered. “I hold no allegiance to Honce. Never have. I care nothing for the place. Haven’t been further than Entel in three decades and more.”
“You are Wilkie Dogears?”
“I am honored that my name precedes me.”
“They call you the Polite Pirate.”
“Life is too harsh for added unpleasantries, although I would disagree with the term ‘pirate.’ I am a privateer; Port Mandu is an honest trader.”
That brought a pause and a look that showed her to be clearly unconvinced.
The last two goldfish left the dinghies and came onto the deck to aid in the inspection. No sooner were they aboard when Wilkie noticed a shadow coming back up under the dinghies. Then a dark hand came up to grab the reed, which was still floating against the side, pulling it under, then righting it, quite obviously as a breathing tube.
“What did you bring to trade, Captain Dogears?” the mundunugu commander asked.
“Rum, of course,” he answered without hesitation.
“Rum for gold.”
“Rum for salt, and fresh water, and a box of meat from one of those giant snakes that swim the rivers inland. One of those can feed a boat for—”
“I do not care.” She motioned to the man beside her to inspect Wilkie, and turned to the others who were crawling about the ship. She sent one up the mainmast to the crow’s nest.
“Now, if these boats had brought in contraband Durubazzi gold, how do you expect we would have brought it up to the nest without you seeing it?” Wilkie asked her with a laugh.
She turned a scowl upon him and he went silent, but kept a grin splayed across his face as he slowly shook his head. He wasn’t concerned, after all, for there really was nothing on Port Mandu to implicate the ship in any illegal dealings. Had these soldiers come out before the dinghies had gone ashore, that would have a been a very different matter, of course.
“Have you no Durubazzi crew?” the mundunugu asked as her soldiers began returning.
Wilkie’s ears perked up, for she still hadn’t inquired about Durubazzi gold, just a Durubazzi person, apparently.
“None here darker-skinned than the woman who now stands beside the captain,” one man answered.
“First Mate Jocasta,” Wilkie explained. “Of the kingdom of Behren—the great city of Jacintha, actually. Have you been there, good commander?”
The mundunugu shot him a perfectly hateful look at that, for of course, she had not. The desert kingdom between Honce in the north and these southern jungles was no friend to the Xoconai.
“You call yourself a privateer,” she said to Wilkie after the last of her soldiers had debarked Port Mandu. “Some would say that makes you a buccaneer.”
“Some talk too much,” Wilkie replied. “I make a living as I can.”
“Then make a better one,” she said. “We are searching for a Durubazzi man. A very tall Durubazzi man. If you find him and bring him to me—you know where our ships are moored—I will reward you with thirty gol’ bears. Old Honce coin, which is accepted in Behren and across the islands. Unmarked and untraceable, so you will not have to explain to any of my colleagues who make note of it.”
Wilkie tried not to appear surprised. Reflexively, he glanced to the dinghies, where the shadow had been, and was glad that it was gone once more. Thirty gol’ bears? For a single wanted man?
“Interesting. Pray tell me his name.”
“Mantili,” she answered, verily spitting the word. “Massayo Mantili.”
“Thirty?”
“Thirty. Untaxed, untraceable.”
“Might I deliver him tied with arms splayed against my prow?”
“Alive,” she said. “We want him very much alive.”
“And if he unfortunately dies?”
“Alive,” she repeated, turning to leave. “And if you happen upon his corpse, you would be better off pretending you never saw it.”
Soon after, the goldfish were paddling for shore, and Wilkie noticed that the shadow reappeared under the dinghy right on cue.
“We will bring the boats aboard, Captain,” Jocasta said, staring all the while at the same diminutive To-gai-ru woman who had dropped the box of gold.
“Hold, Jocasta,” Wilkie replied, holding up his hand. He subtly nodded his chin toward the water.
“You expect that we will dive for the box?” Jocasta asked, rather incredulously. “It’s five fathoms, and who knows what’s down there waiting for us? Some giant and toothy crocodile, not to doubt. And the muddy bottom’s probably swallowed the chest already. A pity we’ve no powries among the crew.”
Wilkie held his hand up again. “Patience,” he said. “And look more closely at the shadows beneath the aftmost dinghy. I believe we have a visitor. Indeed, I believe you towed him out here.”
Jocasta’s expression became a frown when she followed his gaze. “Boomer!” she called.
A gigantic bald-headed and tattooed man with limbs thicker than a typical man’s chest came waddling over from the mizzenmast.
“My good Toomsuba,” the first mate said when he arrived at her side, switching to the native islander’s real name instead of the nickname, Boomer, she often employed for him. She nodded toward the dinghy.
“A visitor,” Toomsuba noted. “Goldfish?”
“Go and greet him. Let us find out.”
With surprising agility for one of his size, Toomsuba hopped down into the dinghy, sending a wave out in every direction. He fell to the side, looked back at Wilkie and Jocasta with a surprised expression, then plucked the hollow reed out of the water and tossed it behind him into the dinghy. A moment later, he reached his hand down into the water.
He pulled it back almost immediately, dragging a hand, an arm, a shoulder, then the head of a dark-skinned Durubazzi man. As soon as his face broke clear of the water, the Durubazzi began gasping and spitting, having been caught quite off his guard, it seemed, by the removal of his breathing reed.
After sputtering for a bit, the black man lifted his other arm up over the side, bringing with it a length of rope that trailed back under the water.
With a single heave, the mighty Toomsuba hoisted the man clear of the water and over the side of the small boat.
The visitor looked at the giant islander and gave an impressed nod, then turned his gaze to the captain standing at the rail of the vessel and flashed a wide, wide smile and held up the end of the rope.
“I thought you might wish to retrieve the dropped chest,” he said.
“Boomer,” Jocasta said, nodding.
Toomsuba took the rope from the Durubazzi and began hauling it up. Sure enough, the small chest was fastened at the other end.
“May I come aboard?” the Durubazzi man asked the captain.
“Do,” said Wilkie.
When he stood straight, the newcomer was taller than Toomsuba, though not nearly as bulky. He reached for the railing and began pulling himself up, but Toomsuba grabbed him by the back of his pants and heaved him over so forcefully that he tumbled over the rail and fell to the deck at Captain Wilkie’s feet.
“Do indeed, Massayo Mantili,” Wilkie said. “And tell me why I shouldn’t turn you in to the goldfish.”
“I saved your chest of coins,” the man protested, and Wilkie smiled at the confirmation that this was the man the goldfish were seeking.
“You are worth more to me than the coins in that small chest.”
Wilkie watched the man’s expression as he fully regained his footing and standing a full foot taller than Wilkie. He could see that Massayo was searching for an answer here.
“Yes, but the goldfish would also be interested in my tale of how I found the chest of coins you tried to hide from them.”
Wilkie scowled.
“They want me alive, good sir,” the newcomer said. “Of that I am certain.”
Wilkie nodded his congratulations at Massayo’s cleverness.
“Still, I could deliver your corpse to them,” he reminded.
That didn’t put Massayo off his guard, Wilkie noted.
“You could. But I would be worth far more to the goldfish alive than dead. And I assure you that I am worth far more to you than I am to them—if I am alive, I mean.”
Wilkie stepped back and turned to the side, sweeping his hand out toward the door on the front wall of the raised quarterdeck. “Do come to my cabin and tell me how that might be,” he said. “The goldfish seem quite interested in you. Make me understand.”
“So do tell me, Massayo Mantili, why you are so valuable to the goldfish,” Wilkie said, pouring a shot of whiskey for himself and for Jocasta, then nodding to the tall visitor to see if he was interested.
Massayo nodded. “Why do you keep calling me that strange name?” he asked.
“Why did your mother give it to you?”
“I am not…”
Wilkie was moving the glass of whiskey out toward his guest as the man began the denial, but he pulled it back and changed his smile into a frown.
“Let me be very clear here,” Wilkie warned. “You are a clever man—perhaps too clever to be trusted. I know who you are, surely. It was no coincidence that the goldfish commander named a fugitive they had been pursuing, while you just happened to ride out here just ahead of them under one of my shore boats. So, do you wish to be clever, or do you wish to remain alive?”
He held the glass back out and Massayo accepted it, gave a little shrug and a grin of surrender, and took a sip.
“They have taken almost everything from me,” Massayo admitted. “And I had a lot to give. They got tired of paying for my goods, I suppose.”
“What goods?”
“Is your ship soft-painted to slow a wizard’s lightning bolt? To seal the hull?”
Wilkie cocked his head in surprise. Almost every ship sailing south of Freeport was soft-painted, which was the term for brushing the hull with the gooey substance created in the Durubazzi jungles. “A bit, of course, as are all…”
“That is me, my doing. The rubair—rubber—that seals your hull was my doing. We in Durubazzi have used it for years beyond memory, but I found ways to make it better, stronger. And I put together the workers and the needed, and secret, ways and means to make it plentiful enough and very usable on the larger ships. That was my work. All of it.”
“The Mantil Works,” Jocasta said in recognition, nearly spitting her drink. “Mantil, Mantili. Massayo Mantili.”
The tall, dark man bowed.
“I see,” Captain Wilkie said. “The goldfish have stolen your business, then?”
“My warehouses,” Massayo answered. He considered it a moment, then shrugged. “But not my secrets. It is my own fault. I underestimated their ruthlessness and stockpiled too much. They were not pleased that I was also selling to the buccaneers, and to the Behrenese warships. Now with me out of business, they expect that if they sink a pirate, it won’t be replaced by a ship as well-protected from an augur’s lightning.”
“If they have the warehouses, why are they so eager to get you, then?” Jocasta asked.
“They have what I produced, but they do not know how I produced it, you see?” Massayo replied, and tapped his temple. “Nor does, nor will, anyone else. And of course, if I am free and begin production again, their designs on weakening the buccaneers or the Behrenese fall apart.”
“Then you are worth chests of gold to them,” said Wilkie.
“Chests of gold I dug for them in their mines,” Massayo added, his tone full of bitterness. “If you wish to return me to the goldfish, Captain Wilkie, please do make it my body. I’ll not slave under their whips again.”
“Now I am confused,” said Wilkie. “If you were so valuable to them, if you have in your head such valuable information, why would they put you to the whip in the mines? To break you?”
“Because they only recently figured out that I was Massayo Mantili, after beating my friend to death when they thought him Massayo. They could not break him for information of producing the rubber that he simply did not know.”
“And you let him die in your stead?” Jocasta asked threateningly.
Massayo stared at her hard but did not respond.
Watching him, Wilkie understood that Jocasta had hit an open sore here, as this man standing before him had to deal with no shortage of guilt.
After a while, Massayo and Jocasta broke their locked stares, and Massayo turned back to Wilkie.
“What are you going to do with me?”
“It would seem that you are indebted to me,” Wilkie answered. “To the price of thirty gol’ bears, untaxed and untraceable. Do you have thirty gol’ bears, Massayo Mantili?”
“All that I have I wear now as I stand before you, unless of course you allow me to count the chest I recovered, which could be considered mine under salvage law.”
“I will not, and it is not,” Wilkie replied with a laugh. Behind that jest, the captain also doubted this man’s claim of having no other assets, but no matter. “We weigh anchor with the slack tide. I haven’t the crew to spare to row you back to shore, so if you wish to return to your jungles, you will have to swim.”
Massayo gave a knowing grin. “You would let me do that?”
“No,” Wilkie answered. “You owe the thirty gol’ bears.”
Massayo laughed helplessly and held up his hands to either side in surrender.
“And I am in need of crew,” Wilkie explained.
“I am now a buccaneer?” Massayo said with a snort.
“What is there for you to fear? The goldfish already hate you. So yes, Massayo, you are now a buccaneer, and on Port Mandu, you are expected to know your place. Your hands will be rubbed raw, I assure you, and you will come to cringe whenever you hear Toomsuba’s giggles or First Mate Jocasta’s snarls as you go about your many, many chores. But you will not complain and will do as you are told, and with all pride and hard effort.”
Massayo tilted his head, seeming amused, but Wilkie was quick to quash that.
“Because you know that at any time, you can be my barter to any warship of the Tonoloya Armada.”
The amused grin disappeared.
“How much do you know of sailing?” Wilkie asked.
“Nothing.”
“Then be a quick learner and make yourself useful.”
“He’s a tall one,” said Jocasta. “We could always use him to scrub the barnacles from our hull.”
“I am sure that would please you,” said Massayo.
“More than you can possibly imagine,” Jocasta answered, and stabbed a finger toward the door, signaling for him to lead the way out.
Captain Wilkie poured himself another drink when the others were gone. He knew that he was taking a great risk here. The goldfish wanted this man badly—the prudent thing, certainly, would be to turn Massayo Mantili over to them and take the gold. That would also be the responsible thing for him to do for the sake of his crew.
But no, he could not.
He didn’t really know why, but something in the gut of the Polite Pirate told him that he could not do that.
Even before the coming of the Xoconai, Wilkie Dogears had lived his life by following his instincts, and he wasn’t about to stop now.
Not for thirty gol’ bears.
Not for a thousand gol’ bears.
Soon after, Port Mandu glided away from the Durubazzi coast, the shadows of her sails stretching long before her.